Maybe Rocco will also be happy because Fiorentina have won and passed the round in the Italian Cup and “winning is the only thing that matters”, but someone explain to the Viola president that this is not the football that Florence likes. Winning like this is neither pleasure nor enjoyment, indeed it does inc …
This is a sad, gray, convoluted football, almost the same as that of the last years of the decadence of the Valliana and for this reason even more unbearable. And Rocco, who was supposed to be the New Man, is increasingly resembling the Old Man in football. You cannot suffer and suffer even with Padova, a Serie C team struggling with staff problems and shocked by three cases of Covid discovered a few minutes before the start of the game, a team that plays better than you in the second half. It is impossible not to understand that this Fiorentina is not growing. That some players are involved instead of improving. That the forwards do not score because there is no play. That you don’t know how to manage the advantage because you don’t know how to manage the ball. You can’t play like in the seventies with three defenders who never play the ball, given away to the opponents. That Callejon hasn’t played second striker since Real. Che, che, che, I would have many others, but I stop.
I have the feeling that it is all in vain and when I hear Fiorentina’s second-in-command coach say “it was a great performance”, I would like to end it here. I’m sure Carillo agreed on the statement with the disqualified Iachini, but that means getting hurt. If they really believe that Fiorentina played well last night, it is useless to go on. A bit like saying that this year there are two more points than last year, forgetting the more difficult calendar of a year ago, even with Napoli and Juve. Or how to listen to the flattering poisoners of wells (there are fewer and fewer) who say to Rocco “go on like this, you’re a great president”. Good president for ideas, dynamism, desire to do, investments in infrastructure, but fragile in the world of football. And I insist, someone tell him. Cosmos are another stuff. I’m talking about Rocco because I don’t want to talk about Iachini, whom we must have respect for. He has his ideas, his culture, his way of doing things that allow him to stay at a good-decent level in football for many years. The problem is not Iachini, but how to imagine the present and above all the future of Fiorentina.
If Rocco is really convinced that it’s okay, that it’s okay to have a hard time winning with Udinese, Padova and all the rest, we have to discuss it. Maybe he had to make another team. It is useless to take good, technical people who have played in great teams, or champions like Ribery, but also young people to be valued like Amrabat and not only, if you don’t have ambitious football in mind, a game idea, a organization that allows everyone to grow. If this is the project, if you like Iachini’s football, we might as well have taken players more suited to a spartan and concrete football, not to take them to the former, capable of making barricades. Iachini has his own story, whoever asks him to play like Sassuolo or Atalanta just wants to send him into confusion. But the ranking doesn’t worry me either, what scares me is spending another season waiting for the night to end. Waiting for the Messiah who could have the face of Sarri, Spalletti or others, but no one knows if he will ever arrive.
Rocco is right when he asks for time, time must be given to him. The problem is seeing that time wastes it, that a year later we are making the same considerations as a year ago despite the investments in the market and an extra year of experience. What is not working? It’s up to Rocco to understand and intervene, if the problem is his decision-making, I don’t speak anymore. If Rocco likes himself football like this, if he is convinced he is doing well, if he puts the money in and thinks of doing what he wants, I have nothing more to say. But he, a great businessman, should also know that investments must be valued, they must be made to bear fruit. If this squad that has cost many millions of euros does not play well, it does not show itself, it does not evolve, it ends up depreciating. Think of Lirola or Pulgar, paid twelve million, today is there anyone willing to pay certain amounts? And even on the wage scale you have to be careful. It has also increased because many players to come or stay in Florence ask for more money because the technical project (outside the cups) does not attract them that much.
With this, I am not asking for Iachini’s exemption. Today would be chaos. But I would like to reflect and hear different speeches because what bothers is the feeling that the mistakes made (first Montella, then Iachini), were useless and today Rocco would make them again. All that remains is to hope. Sometimes football is strange, but if I already think about the match with Roma playing much more advanced football, I get a headache. I would be less worried if Iachini had last year’s barricades in his head, maybe with defense and counterattack something could happen, with this team that has the presumption of playing football with unclear ideas, I have a sincere fear. But I hope to make a mistake for Fiorentina and for football Florence that hasn’t seen the ball since Paulo Sousa’s time. Who will play? Certainly not Pezzella whose ankle the doctors cleaned. He must be out for at least a month. I can foresee Dragowski, Quarta, Milenkovic, Caceres; Callejon, Bonaventura, Amrabat, Castrovilli; Ribery, Kouame
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